Life, Family, Yoga, Stuff

Tag Archives: revamp

While my daughter was gone this summer, I decided it was time to do something about her room. Something serious. She likes to keep things and unlike me, she does’t mind clutter. Her room is not huge by any means. It has a small closet, a built-in desk made of knotty pine and boasts three windows. Not a lot of wall space for placement of the furniture that’s for sure.

While I was in Florida, I started searching for a dresser. I was looking for one, large, long dresser to replace the 2 that we got at Big Lots when she was like six years old. I found the perfect dresser and when I got home the guy still had it. He was asking $100 but I took it for $60 as it had a tad bit of lower damage to the veneer. And to make stuff even better, he lived just a tad north of us. I litterally could’ve walked to his place in 15 minutes.

I started talking to my daughter on the phone (she was in FL) and asked her what she could part with. To my surprise, she said, “Mom, just get rid of it all.” Whoa. I was totally excited but at the same time, what would I do with all of her stuff? We love to have garage sales around here and we’ve had some great ones. The problem was we hadn’t had one for 2 years and our attic is full of garage sale next time merchandise. My parents offered to take some of that “stuff” home with them when they returned our daughter. The rest got donated. Thank God.

I kept the color scheme a secret from her as I started to paint. I did the ceiling first. I chose a color called Sour Lime for her walls. She wanted a lime green, but I really didn’t want to repaint this room next year, so I followed my gut. It turned out great. I painted all of her trim white again to freshen it up. Then the hard part. The knotty pine built-in. This took a couple of days and coats of paint. I also took some foam board and covered it with batting and then covered that with fabric. It looks fresh and fun and we can stick push pins in it and change it whenever we want to. I used velcro to attach.

Three years ago, I asked the nice people that owned the building (and that hold the license to our studio) if we could paint our studio space. It was white and dirty from hands and feet. I offered to do all the work and purchase the paint, after all, it was my idea. On Memorial Day they called and asked me to come down and check out the paint they tested on the walls. They’d had someone paint the entire place. The whole thing. All of it, and it’s quite a large space. I stayed all day that day, and helped as we moved stuff around. Our massage therapist had moved out, so they let the studio take over her space as well. We now had our own entryway, lounge space and boutique.

The lounge, entryway and our boutique areas, have been this color you see above for a long time. Neutral flesh is what we’ve decided it call it. It’s OK. It went with our eclectic array of stuff and our funky rugs and whimsies. Rugs are great. Especially on a concrete floor in the winter time in a basement. But on occasion we have a lot of rain, or ice or snow that will melt. Wet rugs are not fun. Then there’s the funk and the weight that goes with that. I like to improve stuff. It was time. A couple of us picked out this great color of paint. It was a metallic, silvery jade. We wanted shimmer and we needed shine. I went to purchase that cool paint to find it was a two part process. Yep. That’s right. The first gallon is a base coat that costs $30. The second gallon, the shimmer coat, costs $40. What? I about died. What if we had to paint this area twice? No can do.

This time, I didn’t ask. I just went for it. Hope I’m not in trouble!

So there I was. At Lowe’s. All alone with no swatches of anything for ideas except the thought that I’d already painted the cabinetry, our lamp and our bookcase black. The studio is already green, so Wasabi was out. I went for an antique gold. It has hues of green and it’s warm and bright at the same time. I picked up the flower panels at Tuesday Morning. Uh oh. We forgot to paint underneath the counter. Amanda and I painted the entryway.

I found an affordable place online to purchase some interlocking foam squares for the floor. They can get wet and they came in lots of colors. Sold. We got black and red. I also recovered our barstools that used to be covered with this dated tapestry. This area turned out amazing. It looked so good that in fact, it made our lounge and fountain area (which is quite large) look bad. So all alone yesterday and the night before, I tackled the job. Flesh color be gone. I also removed a door which we never close, it’s pictured in the before photo, it’s a big, white door. I jacked my shoulder up moving that, so I’m hoping it’ll work itself out in class tomorrow. Granted I can get out bed.

Fountain area before and after.

The balance practice that I taught all week really came in handy while wielding a paint brush and standing on the edge of this fountain. I’m not a tall person. It was quite the stretch for me. I was so tired afterwards I failed to get a photo of the completed area. That’s OK. There’s always later as I need to get the artwork back on the walls.

The students that don’t read this blog, will be in for a BIG surprise next week.